Mahtesian response to Obama camp

Thanks for your note. I can appreciate your strong position on this and want to assure you it is getting a respectful hearing. As you know, we have responded to some of your concerns by fixing the headline and also by providing an additional quote from Tim Roemer, whom I spoke to after our story had been filed and posted.

My general feeling is that the original headline, which I think you correctly flagged as unfair, has poisoned the campaign’s view of this piece. Absent that headline, I don’t think the reaction would have been so strong.

I’ll try to address your points one by one. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I’ve written but I’d like to get to the position where at least you see that some of your concerns are unwarranted or that we didn’t ignore relevant material as you noted.

If you still have specific objections, I’m happy to talk about them.

Regards,

Charlie

1) a correction of the paragraph on the challenges in the general election

I’m not trying to be coy here – I just don’t understand this. The only place we mention the general election is at the end, and there all we have is a voice that says Sen. Obama would prove popular.

2) the fact that most political scientists don’t feel there is actually a Catholic gap.

I don’t believe that’s a fact. I assume you are referring to the line in the Washington Post blog post by Father Reese here. If you can provide us with proof of his contention that, “Most scholars believe that once the number crunchers get a hold of the exit poll data and control for income, gender, age, education and issue concerns, the “Catholic factor” will disappear,” then yes, I think our story should include it.

I’ll note that the one political scientist we quote, John Green, seems all too familiar with the point we are writing about and speaks to it. Green is widely acknowledged to be one of the most knowledgeable academics in his field.

3) The story ignores Barack’s growing strength among Catholics, a point picked up by many including Father Tom Reese in the Washington Post:

I don’t think the story ignores it. Up high, we mention that Sen. Obama “has closed the once-gaping gap during his post-Super Tuesday string of wins.”

The story also mentions the “recent gains among Catholics in places like Wisconsin.”

4) It ignores the fact that Barack won the Catholic vote in some important Catholic states: Louisiana – (13th most populous in number of Catholics in country); Missouri (19th); Virginia (20th); and he split the vote in Wisconsin - (12th) and Maryland – (16th).

The story acknowledges that there are states where Sen. Obama has won the Catholic vote. And it notes that he won the Catholic vote in Virginia.

While perhaps we might have noted the “important Catholic” states you mentioned, keep in mind that the exit polls also show that Sen. Obama failed to win the Catholic vote in any of the top 10 states ranked by percentage of Catholics that have voted so far. I’d argue that those are important Catholic states too. The closest he came (in the top 10) was the tie in Wisconsin; in the 7 others that have voted, Sen. Clinton carried the Catholic vote, in most cases by large margins.

As for Maryland, I believe he trailed Sen. Clinton 48-45 there.

5) There is a strong implication that because of Barack’s supposed “problems” with Catholics he will face similar challenges in the general election. This is a logical fallacy and wholly unsupported by facts. It’s like saying that Sen. Clinton will have problems with Black voters against John McCain because Barack is winning them now. Even some conservative commentators are already suggesting

that Obama will have an advantage among Catholics compared w/ McCain in a general matchup.

I don’t see the strong implication. Again, there’s almost no mention of the general election in this story. I think your team is reading too much into this.

As to the conservative commentator you are referring me to in the Slate article, we actually quote him saying that Sen. Obama will prove popular in the general election. That’s as far as we go in discussing the general—-a quote saying Obama would prove popular.

6) Hillary’s early wins among Catholics has more to do w/other demographic advantages that Obama has been chipping away at and winning more recently. The article ignores the fact that most political scientists think that once you control for age, race and gender there is no Catholic gap. Again, see Washington Post above.

Please see my note on the “most political scientists” contention in the 2nd bullet point.

I believe we make reference to these other points.

The lede plainly states that Sen. Obama’s recent wins “have been marked by continued and impressive gains among women, lower-income workers, Hispanics and virtually every other demographic group.”

Elsewhere in the story, we refer to another Clinton demographic advantage: “Clinton’s strength with Catholics is in part driven by her popularity with Hispanics, many of whom are Catholic.”

And we also have this: “the fact Clinton began with strong familiarity and strength among various demographic groups, including Catholics.”

7) The Catholic vote was tabulated in 19 exit polls. We won, tied or nearly tied (within 3 points of winning) in 7 states. This is 36% of the vote. This is hardly "only a few exceptions" as stated in the article. The premise is false.

By our count, you won 4 states (Georgia; Missouri; Louisiana; Virginia), lost 14 and tied 1 (Wisconsin). We were not counting “nearly tied.”

The same trend appears if you look at the 20 top counties ranked by Catholics. We didn’t include that point because we did not think it was fair – because 6 of them were in New York.

8) Instead of all the scholarly analyses from political scientists about the Catholic vote (which came to the conclusion that it is trending towards Barack), your article closely tracks the arguments of discredited right wing academic / blogger Deal Hudson in a column from 2/28

(I addressed the political scientists issue in the 2nd bullet point).

The link you provided is the first I’ve seen of this column. Having just now read it, I’d argue that our piece does not “closely track” those arguments.

Hudson’s piece appears to have a heavy focus on the general election. Our article does not delve into the general. Besides, Hudson does not appear to hold Douglas Kmiec’s favorable opinion of Sen. Obama in high regard. David Mark’s story quotes Kmiec saying very positive things about Obama—without a counterpoint.

If the Hudson issue is meaningful to you, I can talk to David about it. I’d be very surprised if he was aware of this piece.